What She Taught Me

for my mother Irene Clotilde Luque May


In this world
you have to be patient,
there is a reason the sweetest food is served
in limited quantity, at the end of the meal.

In this world everything waits for something else,
body is only an envelope, spirit is the message.
Courage is a tool to bring experience
out of possibility into the realm of time.

Time is a whirling ancient
dancing to the rhythms of life.

With head thrown back,
mouth wide open,
eyes rolling up
and arms out stretched.

Turning, (what seems to us
riding on the hem of time's coat)
faster and ever faster
till the turning throws us back

into the sea of all that is
and all that is yet to be.

Black was the night

empty of stars

Mist hung a limp cape 

on the bare shoulder of the hills and

I dreamed I could see the shape of life-

In the darkness of knowing and not naming.

Yellow summer leaves

                 My backyard tree
                                           Broke into a gallop 
Releasing 

                          the legendary stallion

                                                      Wild as hay

Debts to Pay


When I was young and dreaming

I never stopped to think.

The earth I grew in spoke to me

and the wind taught me to sing.

Warm morning sun would wake me

and draw me out in play,

when I was young and dreaming and

had no debts to pay.

A Story, Perhaps

A time comes

when dreaming is as important,

no more important,

than the awake world

in the lives of some people.

These people believe they can dream the world anew.

They start

by doing the smallest things in dream:

they blink their eyes, nod their head or

wave toward the view of the dreamer.

With time they begin to build things:

a desert from a sandbox,

a garden from a blade of grass,

a shed, a house, a castle.

Eventually,

they connect with others

like themselves in the realm of dream.

Their circle grows as they form

a meeting place

where they choose to spend

part of their waking lives in dreaming.

Some go crazy, or get caught-up in a nightmare.

Others simply disappear as their dreams

fade from consciousness.

But, a few get through

to the reality of dreams

and they begin

to remake

the world.

Self Portrait

My caricature is outlined
in the jar of vocabulary

On the edge of expression
I tear into existence

Plying limits
self-imposed

Exposing me
composing me